George Lucas was right, 'The audience IS listening'
Facebook has brought together an audience of incredible numbers. The social networking giant is today a community of people that keeps on growing, creating for businesses an opportunity to reach out directly to consumers. But here lies the question, why are businesses still looking like ‘rabbits in the headlights’ and failing to truly engage with audiences that can help many survive during these hard economic times?
Today, Facebook has over 750 million users worldwide. For many businesses that figure is a fantasy, after all, are we going to engage with so many? So let’s narrow this figure down into more manageable and relevant numbers. In the US there are over 154 million ‘active’ users, Indonesia comes in second with 40 million and a 16 per cent penetration rate, while in the UK there are 30 million users reaching half of the population. Malaysia has over 11 million users accounting for nearly 1 in 2 residents, while Singapore has a very active 2.5 million with 54% of people being on Facebook.
And the figures don’t stop there. Here are some more, more than have of Facebook users access the network each day, half of which do so through their mobile phones. And those that access Facebook through a smartphone or other mobile device are ‘twice as active as Facebook compared to non-mobile users.’
For many companies and organisations, these numbers are very 2-dimensional. The audience is there, but the history and culture of 20 century business dictates that for many they still broadcast to them through a given Facebook Page.
Audience engagement is much more than a Facebook Page and the apps and tabs that these Pages have. It is about, well, engagement. It is about listening and delivering. In business it is about meeting needs. And to meet business needs you needs to re-invent itself, spending time speaking an engaging with your various audiences.
Many companies are focused on the comfort of your own structure. Safe in the knowledge of how they have always delivered their business. But what about your audience? Have they been happy in how they have received your business?
As Facebook show’s us, people today are connected online. For many they check their network, their community first thing in the morning. People seek input, advice and support from their community that they have before they have spent money. Today, people are happy to share bad experience, which shapes many companies brands and reputations.
While engagement is certainly not as cheap as business thinks it is, it creates a much more personal relationship than brands have ever had with it’s audiences. It creates the loyalty, the holy-grail of business relationships that many aspire for.
Think about it this way, how do you like being talked at?
Social Media in 2011 – A Review
Friday, December 30th, 2011This time last year I made a series of predictions about social media and public relations. I suggested that while 2010 was a year of discovery, the past 2011 was going to be about sharing and engaging. About communities being empowered by the knowledge they will have pooled together. I highlighted from my perspective the challenges and opportunities that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will pose for companies and individuals. The impact that social networking has had on events during the past year has truly been beyond what anybody could have expected.
While 2010 was about Wikileaks, the past year has been about challenging the reputation of companies, organisations and individuals that used the law to hide their indiscretions. Twitter and other social networks came into their own as members of the legal profession struggled to grasp the structure of communications across international jurisdictions.
In my post ‘2011, A Year Of Change In Public Relations,’ I said that the coming year was going to be about communities that were engaged and empowered. Wikileaks showed what you could do privately. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were the channels through which you could anonymously share content and opinion. They are the channels that gathered a community together, empowering them to seek the transparency that was far too often absent. Even the once trusted media estate came under the gaze of the community.
The Arab Spring in North Africa was an occasion that surprised many commentators. Sharing of stories on Twitter about high-profile individuals was going to happen. Managing reputations has now moved into a real-time business. In fact, if something wrong has been done it is today best expected that such an act will become public.
Last year I also raised the point about the power of mobile, of cellphones. Wherever you are you have a cellphone. You are connected to a world of real time information that reaches you as quickly as you wish to access the news that is available. News shared by the network that you are connected to. Reliance on traditional news channels is long gone. News is shaped by members of the communities that we trust, which is why from a public relations perspective crises are today that when audiences go negative on a brand, cause or individual.
As I stated, news organisations are not dead and they are certainly not dying. They are just changing and adapting to become what their primary audience wants of them. An adoption that will continue in the 2012.
But what about the coming year? Well, I am finishing my thoughts on this and will share these with you pretty soon.
Tags: 2011, audience, content, facebook, journalism, mobile, news, pr, publicrelations, publishing, reputation, socialmedia, socialnetworking, transparency, twitter, youtube
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